Voyage of Tuffy: Slipstream Thoughts
Article series by John Hughes
The various shades of gray mottled in the low clouds above are reflected in the smooth surface of Ursula Channel. These same colors, but made brighter somehow by the ripples of a light breeze, and Snow Goose’s long widening tail, also hold hints of green, brown and black from the sightline border between sky and sea. The sky and the sea… these pretty much define the scope of our activities, and they cause my thoughts to wander to those creatures who dwell above and below—especially when a giant spout, humped back or tail appears before me, or when an eagle descends from above to see if Tuffy’s bow is scaring up anything interesting for breakfast.
Looking ahead, McKay Reach veers off to the right, taking most of Ursula’s water with it, and holding its own set of adventures, challenges, promises and destinations. Today, however, Fraser Reach to the left holds our destiny. Skinnier but longer, it accelerates the current, which favors us this morning. Grabbing ahold of Tuffy’s full displacement hull, it tugs her, at over 8 knots now, down a path once traversed by a massive flow of ice probably several thousand feet thick. The depth finder is flashing its annoyance at getting no return signal, but the chart indicates a steep drop on both sides—continuing the angle of the 1200-foot hills down to 1700-feet depth in middle channel.
Occasionally a cut with nearly vertical walls allows a peek into the wooded recesses where taller and steeper cliffs reside. Rock climbers—were they able to gain access—would delight in the moves demanded by such granite faces. These earthen structures, while within sight, may as well be in the crushing pressure of the deep or the oxygen-deprived heights of our upper atmosphere, for as affirmed by names on the chart such as Goat Harbor, Goat River and Bear Pass, they require special attributes and skills to negotiate life that are lacking in all but a few creatures.
These walls on either side of us also confine the moisture-rich clouds that, subjected to air currents created by the warming day, turn into the little squalls that race about the channels, washing the salt off our boats and, sometimes, our bodies. The bigger storms sweep through and over everything, replenishing the thousands of freshwater lakes tucked just over these hills. These lakes in turn feed the plethora of rivers, creeks and waterfalls that, despite their continuous flow, fail to dent the salinity of the oceans they eventually meet.
A glance backwards over Tuffy’s transom can easily turn into a transfixed stare as the propellor churns in the water creating whirlpools spinning in a trail of forgotten propulsion. Like memories, they fall away, diminishing in size and spreading out to become part of a wider experience. Tuffy’s hull creates a beautiful wake, dozens of small and short waves that line up almost straight back and then widen out slowly before gracefully curling off to each side—hopefully brushing up against a rock or piling to feed a mussel but, more likely, just fading into nothingness.
We started this chapter with “reflections,” so as we leave Ursula Channel to ply Princess Royal Channel, I’m reflecting on what has surprised me about our journey up the Inside Passage.
A big surprise is the depth and width of the memories of my dad. On the surface, not so surprising as he initiated and fostered my interest in boating. His dad, my paternal grandfather, was an ocean going sea captain, whose license hangs on my wall at home. The operating restrictions say it all: “Any Vessel, Any Ocean.” My grandmother, feeling enough was enough, let him know his wandering days were over, so he became a maritime attorney in NYC before accepting the position of my hometown’s first Police Commissioner. I never got the chance to meet him, but have been led to believe we shared the same temperament. But the boating bug stuck with his son and my dad taught me to sail by racing up and down New England’s coastline and fostering my interest.
Living on a body of water, we had canoes, skiffs, daysailers and the like. When I was thirteen he offered to match my lawn cutting earnings and together we bought my first boat, a Boston Whaler 13 with a Merc 35, and I was hooked for life. We shared a lot of hours catching stripers, snappers and blues off that boat, and every evening he would take the helm while I took another turn around “the pond” on the ski. We sailed Cygnet (a Danish Sturgeon 24) all around Long Island Sound and he navigated while I crewed on family friends’ sloops and yawls during the summer Corinthian races. A wonderful man, missed by many even to this day—twenty three years after passing—but he seems to be here with me on this trip.
Surprising to me also is that I haven’t felt lonely. I do have my buddy boater Bob, and I am of course meeting people throughout the trip, but while I do miss my family and friends it isn’t with any degree of sadness or loneliness. I guess I know in the back of my mind that the trip, and its long days solo on the boat, is finite, and that all my special people will be there on my return.
I should have known to expect this, but the vastness of the country up here, and the lack of communities, people and settlements, is greater than I expected. And similarly, the lack of boat traffic, particularly other longterm cruisers, is a surprise. We have days seeing no boats, and days on end of seeing only a few. Since the commercial seasons started we have seen more seiners, trawlers, trollers and gill netters working the shores, and more sport fisherman on guided trips, but there’s still plenty of empty water up here folks.
I also have to admit to being surprised at how completely happy and satisfied I am with Tuffy’s performance on this trip. Hour after hour, day after day, week after week and—now, month after month—she purrs along smooth as a top! On a flat day in some of these channels anything that floats would keep you alive, but when the wind picks up against the current, or when the surface water of ocean swells develop waves of their own, Tuffy’s design and build proved her to be a champion. Were this not to be a once in a lifetime adventure for me (for reasons only due to personal currents pulling in other directions) I would not hesitate to turn her around in Port Townsend and do it again. Besides being dependable and seaworthy she has proved a dry, warm and a comfortable shelter. I’m confident a stouter 25-foot coastal cruiser there is not. Nice job, Sam!
It also shouldn’t surprise me, as I’ve had the good fortune to meet a lot of wonderful people in my life, but the individuals living on, and adventuring in, the Inland Passage are an outstanding group of people. Friendly, considerate, helpful, happy, capable and energetic to a one! I’ve also met my share of ne’er-do-wells in my life, but not up here. Well, there was one, but that was several years ago. I had occasion to bump into the captain of a small wooden historic tour boat who’d done us wrong—cancelling our 40th anniversary reservation when a better opportunity for him arose. But I found it within myself to behave, merely making my introduction, asking if he remembered me (and what he did) and affixing him a hard stare before turning my back on him. Nice to have closure.
There are two wildlife surprises to me as well. The first is the relatively few bear sightings… and I‘ve been looking! We have seen several, but I expected many more based on past personal experience and the areas we’ve been traversing—and stories from others who had made the trip. I hope it’s simply happenstance and bad luck, and not a bad sign for bears. I have seen a fair amount of dolphins on this trip, but what’s surprising here is their behavior. I’ve always known them to be very social—to swim right over and spend some time swimming alongside, playing chicken with the bow, lifting an eye to see who’s in the cockpit and “clicking” away. On this trip I’ ve found them standoffish. Not necessarily wary of Tuffy, but not coming over to say hello either. Maybe the prevalence of planing hulls and twin 350 hp outboards vs 7 knot displacement hulls is changing the interaction dynamic for interspecies communication?
Perhaps the biggest surprise has been how little we’ve used our tenders. There are tons of docks up here! Most communities, regardless of size, have a really nice well- built dock, usually with space available to slip in with a couple of minicruisers. Sometimes (like at Buttedale), the dock would be there (a really nice one) and the community wouldn’t! There are also some floating docks around suitable for tying up to (but watch where you step), and the larger communities have a marina (or several) with transient slips always available. With few exceptions, we were able to bring our little master ships into a docking situation—it seems there’s always room for a 25-foot boat.
In the beautiful coves we’d raft up with no need to get from one boat to the other. We were quite content to enjoy the evening from our cockpits or cabins so, again, no need to deploy the tenders. In my planning I’d expected to be deploying the tender from across the bay, or around the point, motoring to town to reprovision or explore. That’s just not the reality up here—on this trip at least. I believe we’ve only used them a couple of times, and then really just to get them wet and mess around in a cove. Were I to do it again I’d be tempted to throw a kayak and a paddle on top.
Lastly, a nice surprise is the availability of good tasting potable water. I expected it to be a rarity, but it’s everywhere.
So there you have some thoughts from the slipstream, as well as a few things I’ve found to some degree surprising. As far as a trip update, there’s not much exciting to report. We had a beautiful night’s sleep on anchor in Foggy Bay (our last night in Alaska) and then the most boring passage ever across Dixon Entrance (that’s a good thing!) with smooth distanced swells the whole way back into Canada. One night in Prince Rupert was enough to clear customs, have a shrimp basket, pick up some ice and some milk and refuel.
From there it was a trip down “The Ditch,” again, which is that long straight narrow passage known as Greenville Channel, anchoring and rafting up in Nettle Basin again because we liked it so much the first time. The following day we made for Bishop Hot Springs (same reason), bobbing briefly enroute outside the small community of Hartley to hop on their cell service, download our messages, and make a couple of phone calls. There was one short space on the dock up in Bishop Cove so Tuffy pulled in first with Snow Goose rafting to her outside. After one more hot soak in that pretty little inlet, we pulled out early for a long day’s cruise.
Humpbacks escorted us down Ursula Channel where the “slipstream thoughts” above were recorded. In Graham’s Reach Snow Goose and Tuffy separated for a couple of hours to head down opposite sides of the 14-mile Sarah Island, Bob choosing to navigate Snow Goose down Tolmie Channel and Tuffy taking on Hekish Narrows into Finlayson Channel. The clouds all dissipated, and with the wind somewhere else we made the decision to push on beyond Rescue Bay, our original destination. We had already traveled 70 miles but it was only 3:00 on a beautiful afternoon so why not go for a trip record and allow for a an easy jaunt and early arrival into Shearwater tomorrow.
We found an idyllic little round anchorage, perfect for two boats rafted up in the middle, surrounded by conifers situated in the middle of the Lady Douglas-Don Peninsula Nature Conservancy. Entering through a bit of a back door, it was amazingly beautiful (and fun) to thread our way through rocks, islands and islets dotting the coves and passages along the mainland. I suspect not too many cruisers come in here because of all the rocks and shallow zones, but we were here at high tide and couldn’t resist. We determined we should be out of our anchorage by 9AM to avoid one particularly shallow passage. Hard to ask for a better spot to end an 87-nautical mile day—clearly a trip record! Our boats were sitting on a mirror in the morning, the green backdrop fighting with the blue overhead to control the reflection. A pair of Trumpeter Swans, judging only from their sound, came flying in low over the perimeter trees and disappeared up a narrow passage, just over the water, and honking all the while. A little java, granola in yogurt (the last one), a quick engine check, set the course on the redundant chart plotters and we were soon threading our way out of the Conservancy. When you make this trip, take the short cut through these islands, just at a slower speed.
About an hour outside Shearwater now so I’ll close it up and see if I can get this to Josh when connectivity returns.
Ruffy on Tuffy •SCA•
Thank you John,
I love your writing. Prose poetry at it's best. As a word guy, I'm sure you know the name of the winds that blast down narrow fjords in high latitudes: Katabatic winds. Cooling off above the ice fields, the denser air drops and can funnel into slot canyons picking up speed and the force can become like a helicopter hovering directly over your head. These are worse in southern Chile because there is no large land-mass to stop Atlantic winds from crossing the Andes and accelerating down slot canyons of the old glacier carved fjords.
A gentler version from Sausalito, CA to Santiago, Chile is the coastal Pacific fog belt pouring over the ridge and dropping inland, or over the bay. In fact, the same phenomenon occurs in the ocean as this cold air cools the water, and the increased density causes it to flow down toward the Abysmal Plains; a cross current to the upwelling - all cause by variations in water temperature and friction from surface winds.
As cold air blasts across the ice sheets of the far north [or south] they cause another effect with a great name: polynya - from the Russian - an opening in the sea ice at the shore as the ice is pushed away.
Anyway, carry on, and thank your for sharing with us all.
Mike Smith in Napa, CA
Thank you so very much!